Education enrolment falls among young adults

The number of Nunavummiut aged 20 to 24 who are enrolled in education has fallen by 10 per cent over the past eight years, according to Statistics Canada.

That troubling trend was revealed in a study titled Education Indicators in Canada: An International Perspective, 2018, which Statistics Canada released in December.

The only other jurisdictions that were in decline over the past eight years were the NWT and New Brunswick, both falling four per cent. The Canadian average saw an increase to 43 per cent of 20-24 year olds still involved in education, a seven per cent jump.

Other data included in the study showed that 35 per cent of Nunavut’s population has a college or university education, the lowest rate in the country. Likewise, the high school graduation rate in Nunavut was 40 per cent compared to the Canadian average of 88 per cent.

Nunavut also had a higher-than-average proportion of women graduating from high school compared to males. The national rate in 2015-16 was 91 per cent female to 85 per cent male high school graduates. In Nunavut, the spread was wider at 14 per cent in favour of women.